When Family Secrets Explode — The Idiot

The Ivolgin household erupts as General Ivolgin, sober for days and trembling with withdrawal, confronts Hippolyte in Ptitsin's salon and demands the family choose between him and the dying atheist who drills into his soul. Hippolyte grins, suggests corkscrew, and provokes the old man until Gania exposes yesterday's drunken visit to the Epanchins and the family's fear that the general begged Mrs. Epanchin for work while denouncing his children. The general's treasured story of Captain Eropegoff collapses when Gania and Hippolyte insist the hero never existed; humiliated beyond bearing, he curses the house and storms into the street with Colia carrying his bag. Gania turns on Hippolyte for tormenting a sick old man, and Hippolyte answers with a cold reckoning: Gania invited him hoping to use him against the prince, then treated hospitality like a debt. Knowing he is dying, Hippolyte says hate is his motive power and dissects Gania as ordinary of the ordinary, jealous and conceited without a single original thought, then walks out satisfied. Varia begs Gania to retrieve their father before scandal spreads; moments later Gania finds a note from Aglaya requesting a seven o'clock meeting tomorrow at the green bench with Varia as witness. While the household chases the general, Gania kisses the note and pirouettes, triumph returning the instant humiliation passes. The chapter binds public shame, merciless truth-telling, and sudden hope, showing how families explode when lies are punctured and how opportunists recover faster than anyone decent expects.